


Carnival Prize

by Gammarad



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Carnivals, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, Sirius Cybernetics Corporation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22874353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: Trillian goes to the eighteenth best carnival in the galaxy. Marvin accompanies her.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Carnival Prize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [embraidery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/embraidery/gifts).



* * *

Zeta Leporis is host to the eighteenth best carnival in the galaxy. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has an article with reviews of the first through fifteenth best carnivals, and a list of the next eighty-five best without details. The stringer they sent to write the carnival reviews wrote nothing after arrival at the sixteenth best carnival on Benegerii II and being given the wrong type of ice cream. His unfortunate allergy to a certain ingredient caused a trip to hospital and subsequent inability to continue writing the series due to the inhabitants of Benegeri II being unfamiliar with allergy treatment for Betelgeusians. 

The Guide's article about the best carnivals in the galaxy contains as its last paragraph the following warning: _The editors of this guide are not responsible for any mishaps suffered by any intelligent being at any carnival listed in this guide. Visitors are advised to keep a towel ready at all times in case of emergency._

Marvin's personality was wearing heavily on Trillian. No matter how she tried to cheer him up, or to ignore him, she was unsuccessful. Zaphod said there was a representative of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation People Personality division vacationing on Zeta Leporis. Trillian was determined to find them and obtain a new personality chip for Marvin. 

Ezin Bloozit had worked as a personality designer for the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation for four years and then been caught stealing exclusive operant chips from the manufacturing floor. These chips were intended only for the personal use of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation executives. When inserted into a Sirius product, they disabled its user annoyance features, which otherwise drove most of the company's profits (generated by the Complaints Department). 

Bloozit's flight from Sirius's security force was frantic and headlong and they found their way via hitchhiking to the carnival on Zeta Leporis only a few hours before Trillian's arrival. It was their misfortune that they had been tracked to the carnival, and a squad of Sirius goons pursued them through the carnival to the entertainment of many of the onlooking visitors who thought it was all part of the show. In a panic, the terrified robot personality designer hid the packet of operant chips in a large stuffed lizard which was a prize for any carnival visitor who managed to toss two rings over the necks of Altairian cordial bottles at one of the game booths.

It was that very booth that Trillian and Marvin arrived at. She had searched in vain for the person Zaphod said for sure that his contact in the Sirius employee directory department had said would be here, and she had not expected it to be a rather nice carnival. It had been weeks since she was able to have fun and enjoy herself rather than having to watch Zaphod enjoy himself and try to rein him in as she usually did, so Trillian was determined to at least have a good time if it turned out this was a wild goose chase.

"Aerodynamically speaking, the rings won't ever land over the necks of the bottles," Marvin said to a small alien trying to toss the rings with what Trillian thought might be an antenna. "So you shouldn't feel bad when you fail, though you will. Everyone does." 

"Just let the little... fellow try," Trillian said. "You never know, he might pull it off."

The alien threw his first ring, missed, threw the second. It looked like it would drop around the neck of the second cordial bottle, but it bounced off at the last second. 

"Oh, too bad," Trillian said. "But you have one more try."

The alien missed again. The antenna waved angrily as the small alien's mouth moved, but Trillian could not hear any sound come out. "He's very angry," Marvin said. "I don't blame him. Life is one disappointment after another." 

"I think I'll have a go," Trillian told Marvin. 

"As long as you don't feel too bad when you fail," Marvin replied. 

Trilian grinned. "Tell me the odds," she suggested.

"Two to the forty-third power to one," the depressed robot told her.

"I think we used more improbability than that getting here," Trillian muttered. "So there should be a decent chance." She paid the Galactic credits for six rings and sighted through one at the row of bottles. "Come on Heart of Gold," she said under her breath and threw.

The ring bounced off the second bottle, hit the third, bounced again back onto the second and settled around it. Marvin didn't say anything.

Neither did Trillian, only threw the next ring. It bounced off one of the middle bottles, flipped midair and landed exactly atop the first one. "I win!" said the woman from Earth, bouncing on her toes in excitement. 

She chose a large stuffed red lizard as her prize. "You may have won, but you won't find much enjoyment in a prize like this," Marvin said. "It may seem like good luck now, but it will only take up room on the ship and get in the way."

For once, Trillian thought, Marvin was right. Little did she know that her heart's desire, the chips that would make Marvin no longer so annoying, and the doors and Eddie too for that matter, were hidden inside the prize she had so fortunately won against the odds. All she knew was that it was a very large and awkward stuffed lizard that she didn't really need for anything. She had just wanted to win it, and she had done so. 

A cute Betelgeusian child was pointing at the stuffed creature prizes and begging her mother to let her try to win one. The child reminded Trillian suddenly of herself at that age, or when she'd looked that age anyway -- she had no idea how old the child was in Earth terms. "Here," she said to the little girl. "You can have mine."


End file.
